danger

Friday Firesmith – Bringing down the trees

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The last two trees I brought down were a bit goofy and that made me a bit skittish. The first one did something not totally unexpected, because when you cut a tree that is both dead and hollow, it might, or it might not, do what you plan it will.

Hear me, My Dudes. When you’re felling a tree and that thing starts moving, you do, too. Get the hell away from it. This one hit, then the trunk end backed up over ten feet and it fell over due east another five feet. Standing to one side or right behind it, I would have gotten hit.

Another I cut two weeks ago broke as it was falling and it was more of an explosion than a cut. Part of the top fell backwards. I ran, twisted my ankle, and decided to shop around for a tree cutting service.

So here we are. The guy told me he would take the two smaller dead trees, with twisted limbs going off in all directions, and the dying tree next to The Mom’s She Shed for four-fifty. I think he was in a good mood, for that is a great price, and yesterday, the bucket truck and the saw guy arrived on time and ready to go.

The dead pine is lopped into pieces and dropped without a hitch. The dead water oak is dispatched quite easily, and all is well.

The tree beside the Shed of the She, is a mystery tree. I have been told it’s a water gum, a swamp myrtle, and a copperhead. (Everything is a copperhead to some people.)

So the guy buckets up, limbs fall like rain, he gets a lot of it down, and decides to fell the rest. I warn him about the water faucet in the backyard. He tells me no problem.

He ties the a rope to a tree, uses another rope to fasten a pulley to a tree in the woods, backs the truck up to create tension, and cuts. The tree falls. It does not fall perfect.

It misses my yard wagon by a foot. But the rope pushes another dead tree over and it hits the faucet perfectly. Water springs out like a sprinkler on meth. The guy has no plumbing supplies with him.

Normally, I might be pissed, but this guy has taken down three trees and no one is hurt. I have some spare parts and some glue, so the two of us get the pipe fixed, he cuts some of the larger pieces down to size for me, and we call it a day.

I could have folded my arms, told him the broke pipe was his problem, and simply waited to see what would happen next. But it was a freak accident, unrelated to the actual cutting, and I have three trees down and no one is hurt.

I’ve said that before. No one is hurt.

I think that’s more important that some glue and spare pipe parts and fifteen minutes of work.

Take Care,

Mike

Friday Firesmith – Hurricane Season 2025

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Back when I was a kid, we all went to the Smith’s house when a hurricane came through South Georgia. It rained hard, the wind blew, but the adults wouldn’t let us look out of the windows at all. The lights flickered and did not go out. It was boring.

A hurricane came through Valdosta Georgia back in 1985 or 86, and because I was renting an apartment I didn’t care. I walked to the store to get some beer and realized drinking while being outside wasn’t a good idea, and for that matter, being outside was a bad idea. It was fun, kinda, to lean into the wind like I could.

I was sent to Mississippi in 2005, on the heels of Katrina, and that was life altering. I got there right after the power came on, and the people who owned motels and hotels reserved some rooms for people doing damage assessments so I never slept on a floor or in my truck. I met people who had lost everything, with no way of finding out if their families had survived, or if everyone else was dead. I went to a place where the smell of death filled the air.

Michael just missed us in 2018, but hammered my sister’s place and hometown of Blakely, Georgia. Then in 2023, Idalia hit and flooded my property, which killed many trees. In an odd way, I think that hurricane helped convince Aqaba that living inside was better than not. But by last year, when Helene hammered us, Aqaba was an inside cat.

Helene was the first, and the last, major hurricane I rode out. I had plans to evacuate, rented rooms, had a place to board the animals, and everything was set. Helene’s predicted track shifted west, I cancelled reservations, then she moved back to the east, hard. It was too late to find a place to run.

The storm passed directly over my house at about one in the morning. For about four hours all I could hear was wind and rain. At one point, it was so dark I started hallucinating colors. The wind rode in through the woods like waves at the beach, getting louder and louder, then receding, with the crack of  murdered trees punctuating the sounds. I lay in bed, fully clothed with my shoes on, waiting for the roof to go, or for a tree to come down on the house.

            At one point I was pretty sure I had made a serious mistake in judgement (I had) and was going to pay for it (I didn’t) but once the wind speed hit one hundred thirty eight there was nothing to do but lie there and wait. T’was a long night.

Right now, Erin is still in the Atlantic, heading north with two other systems cranking up. I enter the teeth of the 2025 Hurricane Season having rode out a high CAT 3 Hurricane. I will not do that again. Ever.

Whatever comes out of the ocean this year, I am running from it.

Take Care,

Mike